Array of iPhones and Android devices used on bike by Taiwan senior to play Pokemon Go

While many of Chen San-yuan's Pokemon-dedicated phones are Samsung models, five of them are iPhones, as is a separate phone he uses for actual calls. The gaming phones are mounted on the bicycle's handlebars, and connected to custom battery packs that can keep the phones going all night, The Japan Times said. Some of his trips around Taipei can last six to seven hours.

"I used one cellphone and then kept playing and playing," Chen explained. "After a month, it became three cellphones, six cellphones, nine cellphones, 12 and then 15." His current rig cost over $4,800, not including the roughly $300 per month he spends on in-game currency.

The reason for using so many phones is so that he can achieve higher levels faster, and capture rarer creatures. Pokemon Go transposes some of the gameplay of the console Pokemon titles to the real world, requiring people to actually walk or ride around not just for captures but to stock up on items.

The game was a runaway hit when it first launched in 2016, becoming a media sensation with scenes of dozens of players flocking around real-world places. This initial popularity has waned, but the game is still 41st on the App Store's free downloads chart, beating out the likes of Hulu, Venmo, Yelp, SoundCloud, and PayPal.